if one excepts the United States. Imagination revels in picturing
her future, when she shall have adopted Christian civilisation,
and when steam and electricity shall have knit together all the
members of her gigantic frame.

It was by the absorption of small states that the Chinese people
grew to greatness. The present work will trace their history as
they emerge, like a rivulet, from the highlands of central Asia
and, increasing in volume, flow, like a stately river, toward the
eastern ocean. Revolutions many and startling are to be recorded:
some, like that in the epoch of the Great Wall, which stamped the
impress of unity upon the entire people; others, like the Manchu
conquest of 1644, by which, in whole or in part, they were brought
under the sway of a foreign dynasty. Finally, contemporary history
will be treated at some length, as its importance demands; and
the transformation now going on in the Empire will be faithfully
depicted in its relations to Western influences in the fields of
religion, commerce and arms.

As no people can be understood or properly studied apart from their
environment, a bird's-eye view of the country is given.




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CONTENTS

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION